Tuning In: UMass football radio analyst needs aspirin from day job

Friday

Sep 28, 2012 at 6:00 AM

Bill Doyle Tuning In

You know you’re a diehard UMass football fan if you walk into the Walgreens on Park Avenue in Worcester and recognize the voice of the store manager.

UMass football radio analyst Matt Goldstein has managed 50 people at that store for the past 2-1/2 years, but he admits that few customers know he spends his autumn Saturdays explaining why a quarterback draw worked or how a safety blitz didn’t.

“There are a handful of people who will come in and talk to me about UMass sports,” he said. “Maybe a couple times a month, but for the most part people have no idea.”

Goldstein, 30, drives an hour back and forth each weekday between his home in Belchertown to Worcester, but it takes him nearly twice as long to get to the UMass home games now that the Minutemen have moved up to college football’s highest division and play at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro. That jump hasn’t worked out very well so far. UMass is 0-4. After getting outscored, 145-19, by UConn, Indiana and Michigan, the Minutemen played tougher in their Mid-American Conference opener, but lost, 27-16, at Miami of Ohio last week. They could fall to 0-5 for the first time since 2001 when they host Ohio University at 3:30 p.m. tomorrow at Gillette. Ohio is 4-0, including a 24-14 victory at Penn State. By the way, UMass games are broadcast locally on WVEI, 1440 AM.

Goldstein took the scenic route to UMass, but once he arrived he never left. He kicked for his high school football team in Phoenix, then redshirted a year at Oklahoma State before transferring to New Mexico and then to UMass. Minuteman coach Mark Whipple tried to recruit Goldstein’s brother, Adam, out of high school as a kicker, but Matt ended up going to UMass instead. As a Minuteman, he kicked four field goals and six extra points in 2004. He’s been on UMass radio ever since.

UMass hasn’t finished a season winless since it went 0-4 in 1896, but Goldstein expects the Minutemen to win at least a couple of games.

“It might not be as many as fans are accustomed to,” Goldstein said, “but it’s building the program the right way and eventually UMass will be up there competing for MAC championships.”

The MAC may be the lowest rung on college football’s top division, but the conference posted some impressive victories last Saturday. Western Michigan, which UMass visits next weekend, beat UConn, Northern Illinois knocked off Kansas and Central Michigan defeated Iowa. UMass opened its season with a 37-0 loss at UConn and will play Northern Illinois and Central Michigan later this season. Nevertheless, Goldstein remains optimistic.

“It might not be showing right now in the record or on the scoreboard,” he said, “but as far as seeing the improvements week to week, you can see the job that the coaching staff has done.”

Charley Molnar, the former Notre Dame offensive coordinator who is in his first year as UMass head coach, has already played 27 true or redshirt freshmen and 47 players in all, including transfers and sophomores, who hadn’t been in games for the school before this year.

Goldstein’s wife, Whitney, is the granddaughter of former Red Sox manager Don Zimmer. Fortunately, Goldstein doesn’t see any resemblance. When they met, Whitney Mollica was an All-America third baseman at UMass and he was the team’s Internet play-by-play voice. She’s since become the softball coach at Amherst College and sometimes provides color of UMass softball games alongside her husband.

Goldstein got down on one knee and proposed to Cheryl in 2009 on the ice between periods of a UMass hockey game.

“She was completely shocked,” he said.

Video of the proposal on You Tube has received nearly 30,000 hits.

Zimmer works for the Tampa Bay Rays, so when UMass played in Clearwater, Fla., he would take a week off to watch his granddaughter play. Zimmer also got to see Whitney coach Amherst when it stopped in Florida this year.

“He’ll give her his opinion on certain things, but he wants her to be her own coach,” Goldstein said.

In addition to working UMass football and softball broadcasts, Goldstein does the public address announcing for UMass hockey and women’s basketball and he’s the on-the-court host for men’s basketball, doing his best to whip the crowd into a frenzy.

“I love football the most,” he said. “So any time I can do a football game, that’s my love. But it honestly doesn’t matter to me whether I’m doing play by play, color or public address announcing, as long as I can stay involved in sports and bring my knowledge and enthusiasm to games, that’s what it’s all about.”

Goldstein even filled in as public address announcer at Fenway Park for a Red Sox game against the Blue Jays in July. Of course, the Sox lost, but Goldstein enjoyed it anyway.